"So all of you, watch yourselves! Don't forget the covenant that the LORD your God made with you by making an idol or an image of any kind or anything the LORD your God forbids, because the LORD your God is an all-consuming fire. He is a passionate God." (Deuteronomy 4:23-24)
He certainly is passionate. The cross is evidence of his passion for me and he desires that I would be just as consumed with him, filled with passion for his heart.
Idol worship looks a bit different these days. No longer are there craftsmen plying their trade with stone and wooden objects meant to adorn the shrines of our home. Today we have idols of our own making. They look kind of like Jesus but not exactly. They are always less than what he is, a forgery of the true God.
For the most part, the followers of Jesus have lost their understanding of the majesty of the King. We call him Lord. We call him King. But somehow we do not obey him as such. There is a level of respect and awe that we must retain in our understanding of majesty. When we desire to obey him from love alone it somehow becomes an optional thing but when that love is added to our understanding of King then new life is breathed into our desire to live a life of obedience.
When we lose our sense of awe in the majesty of Jesus we begin to fashion a lesser image of our Lord. We tweak a little here and there to make our image of him a little more comfortable, a little easier to live with, a little more in line with our way of thinking and feeling. We create our god after our own image, which is a lot easier to live up to in this day and age. But that lesser image is an idol and our Father is not pleased.
If our journey with Jesus in this mission he has called us to is easy and requires no sacrifice on our part, we had better check who or what we are worshiping. Our image of God is foundational to who we become. If that foundation is wrong then all the fruit that springs from it is wrong. Just look around at how much of the Church has adjusted their view of our Lord and how sin has now consumed them. They compromised the truth of God, they lessened his majesty, and now they are doing what they think is best according to the idol they have set in the place of the King. They worship an impostor.
We need to seek again a proper understanding of the majesty of our King, according to the revelation he has given of himself in the Bible,. The Spirit brings us to the deeper places but those deeper places are always revealed in the Word. Seek the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, not the idol you are creating to make it easier on yourself. Hint, the Kingdom will make you uncomfortable most of the time but will be marked by righteousness, peace and joy.
No comments:
Post a Comment